Carina Burgher wants to share her liberating feelings of affirmation, confirmation and healing.

"I'm still, like, floating," said Burgher, who's been metaphorically and spiritually airborne since intimately and frankly revealing herself before a national audience. "I'm feeling incredibly inspired."

She's summoned the fortitude to face her own demons while hoping other young people benefit from such intense, uninhibited self-examination. Truly a Brave New Voice.

Now, sharing that insight is the competitive rower's mission as she embarks on a journey to Oregon State University.

The 18-year-old Stockton resident's mentors were moved.

"She was incredibly powerful," said Melchor "Buddy" Sahagun, who coached Burgher and five other Stockton teenagers during the Brave New Voices (BNV) national slam-poetry tournament July 16-19 in Philadelphia. "There was a lot of emotion. Though she teared up and was crying, she pushed through. The response was incredible."

"Oh, my gosh," said Tama Brisbane, who co-founded Stockton's With Our Words (WOW) team in 2005 and has taken it to eight BNV national events. "It's probably the bravest thing I've ever seen us do. It was awesome."

Others among the international coaches and 275 slam poets - representing 55 teams and cities - concurred. Burgher was one of 20 students selected to perform their three-minute poems during a July 19 "best-of showcase." She had earned a perfect score (30) in the July 17 quarterfinals.

"It's an incredible learning experience," Burgher said.

The intensity of her experience is linked to its subject matter. In the ironically-titled "Happy," Burgher confronts her ongoing struggle with anorexia athletica. Not the "purging" stereotype associated with specific body types, it complicates eating disorders with an obsession for physical exertion.

It has afflicted her "since around 13." The National Eating Disorders site indicates seven million women and one million men face the condition in the U.S.

"Asked a year ago, I probably wouldn't have wanted anything said," is how the 2014 graduate of Stockton Collegiate International School expressed it. "I'm at a place now, after competition, that I'm really about opening up and letting people know they're not alone.

"I want to be that person who lets other girls know. That's really the purpose."

"Being so passionate, it's one thing that kept me going so long," she said of the sport and its physical demands. During a "difficult" junior year in 2013, she was "pulled out" of school during second semester.

That was following a December 2012 family "intervention." Mom Jennifer is a realtor, dad Todd is a house painter. She has two brothers (Robert, 20, Lelan,<> 10).

"It happened so quickly," Burgher said. "A couple of days after Christmas, it just became really apparent to my family what I was doing to myself.

"Next thing I knew, I was in the middle of, like, a family intervention. They sat me down. They recognized something was going on: 'You don't talk to us.' I was in denial so much. The way I looked, I was definitely giving off signs. I was not eating."

It was a "tough" regimen: "Being in doctors' offices four days a week. Medical doctors. Nutritional doctors. I lived in doctors' offices for two or three months.

"My health had gotten so bad" that "in-home hospitalization" was ordered. Doctors were all coming out of the woodwork holding me up."

She's now "doing better. I've been in recovery for 18 months. I struggle every day. It'll continues to fight this disorder for a very long time, but the important thing is that I'm fighting."

"Happy" - one of five poems she delivered in Philadelphia with and without teammates Alexa Anicas, 18, and Anthony Orosco Jr., 16 (one.Charter Douglas School); David Mendez, 17 (Franklin High School), and Lavell Jackson, 18 (San Joaquin Delta College) - came somewhat naturally.

She began working on it "around" Christmas of 2013.

"I've been writing as long as I can remember," said Burgher, who crafts prose and poetry and paints with acrylics, wax and crayons. "It's a large body of work. I'm proud of it. It's a normal part of the creative process. At the same time, it's a struggle to open up and allow others to hear or read what you're writing.

"It's such a source of therapy. It's like a release. Everything holds a lot of value. You're always definitely very, very vulnerable to putting yourself out there."

"Ideally, I want to be doing something like the people who put together BNV," she said of San Francisco-based Brave New Voices. "Supporting each voice. I want to help kids in ways that can relate to them. If only one person is inspired, it still will have been worth it.

"Sometimes it's hard to (convey) your work in a relatable way to things I've experienced and grown out of. It's better being kind of a therapist. Not working in an office."

Her BNV awakening at the University of Pennsylvania was ennobling and empowering.

"It's an honor," she said. "You know, the fact your poem is part of being the best. It was kind of an eye-opener for me to see the important value others (put in it). I've always been hard on my own stuff. My own writing. I've received other poets' respect by being up there with them."

At slam-poetry tournaments, praise, approval and solidarity during a performance are indicated by people holding both palms up, facing them toward the performing poet.

"It's such a supportive community," Burgher said. "As soon as you show up, it's like a really big family. I didn't feel like it was a competitive event. People were super-supportive. Standing ovations. It wasn't petty or catty. It was, 'Wow, what an amazing piece. More power to you.'

"Everybody was ready to hold me up. All of a sudden, I'd fall apart and try to get through the next thing. Everybody in the room was holding their hands up. It's so empowering. Like a giant group-hug. It was an incredible experience."

Contact Tony Sauro at (209) 546-8267 or tsauro@recordnet.com. Follow him on Twitter @tsaurorecord.